How to Get Your Greens Super Clean With a Salad Spinner

Of all the gadgets and machines one can have in the kitchen, few are as simple and impossible-to-get-wrong as the salad spinner.

At least that’s what I thought. Until I learned I was, in fact, doing the impossible: I was using my salad spinner wrong.

Here’s how I—and, no offense, but probably you, too—thought a salad spinner was supposed to be used: Wash lettuces under cold, running water. Pile the wet greens into a salad spinner. Spin away. Proceed through life with dry greens.

I went through my salad days like this for years. But there was a problem. My greens were getting dry—but they weren't getting clean. In this era of farm fresh everything, where produce practically transports itself from the ground to our farmer’s markets and “prewashed” is a thing of the past, lettuce has become a little dirtier. And the dirt was sticking.

That’s where our old friend the salad spinner—and its lesser-known superpower—comes in. Turns out a salad spinner can do both the washing and the drying.

Instead of washing the greens under cold water, place them into the spinner first and fill the whole thing up with water. Rustle everything around a bit and then do absolutely nothing for a few minutes. Watch as the spinner acts as a cleansing bath, nudging even the smallest of dirt particles to fall to the bottom.

After you’re finished checking Instagram, remove the basket with the greens in it from the spinner. Dump out the water from the spinner, return the basket to its rightful home, and spin until dry. Proceed through life with dry—and clean—greens.